


His mortal coil

by punkypeggy



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Gen, Other, POV First Person, POV Sherlock Holmes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-02
Updated: 2016-01-02
Packaged: 2018-05-11 04:12:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5613538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/punkypeggy/pseuds/punkypeggy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock Holmes reflects about Moriarty and his influence.</p>
            </blockquote>





	His mortal coil

Every man is a divinity in disguise, a god playing the fool. Some men, however, are demons hiding beneath a human skin. I met the Devil once. His name was James Moriarty.

Having perfected our disguise, we spend our lives searching for someone we don’t fool. That was what he wanted: recognition. Not from anyone, but from an equal. And it is terribly hard to find one when you can hold the known world in the palm of your hand, twist it at your whim, make it scream, turn it to dust and bitter ashes. A man as volatile as him could never leave an heir. No other could be able to continue his legacy. The only way for him to trascend was to find a perfect Nemesis. To be good enough –to be bad enough– to make a perennial impression on someone else's retinas, someone clever enough to /see/ him beyond the subtleties and the lies, beneath the layers. To look beneath humanity and find the god, to scrape its surface and find the monster, bare.

It is without shame that I say I admired him. A man so skilled, a beast so rare, capable of such cruelty. An animal who could push me to my limit –or so he thought. The world was so boring until he took a step on it and marked the rhythm. But it was not in his hand to compose the melody. That was my task. My merit. Sometimes I think we could have fooled each other in turns until we died from old age; black king, white king dancing on the chessboard. Both of us pretending to bite, only to prove a minute later it was a bluff, a double bluff, a triple bluff... But no. A man so skilled, a beast so rare was meant to try and burn the world but invariably set himself on fire. 

I am glad to say I lit the match. And yet, he won.

He trascends his mortal coil as I write these words. He is imprinted in my memory, bound by the shackles of my mind. And I am sure he is laughing.


End file.
